Thursday

PINEHURST - When Rhonda Cornum's Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Iraq in 1991, her life didn't flash before her eyes.

As the helicopter toppled over, killing five of the eight crew members, Cornum had just one thought: "At least I'm dying doing something honorable."

Cornum, a retired brigadier general and former prisoner of war, shared her experiences Wednesday while talking about resiliency and psychological health. Her lecture was part of Ruth Pauley Lecture Series at Sandhills Community College.

Cornum retired from the Army in 2012 after 34 years of service. In her career, she served as a Black Hawk flight surgeon, command surgeon for Forces Command and commander of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. She also commanded the 28th Combat Support Hospital at Fort Bragg.

Wednesday, Cornum showed images of the helicopter wreckage and pictures of her crew during a brief overview of her ordeal as a prisoner in the final days of the first Gulf War.

She and other soldiers were on a rescue mission when their Black Hawk was shot down.

Cornum, then a major, became aware of her surroundings while under part of the wreckage. At first, she thought she had died.

Instead, she had suffered two broken arms, a gunshot wound to the back and other injuries. She also soon found herself surrounded by five Iraqis pointing guns at her head.

Cornum was a prisoner for one week, during which time she was sexually assaulted and subjected to a mock execution.

Afterward, Cornum said she often was asked how she made it. It was a question that perplexed her for some time, Cornum said.

"Of course I made it," she said. "What else would I do? It never even crossed my mind that I wouldn't make it."

That attitude, Cornum said, should be taught to more troops, especially before deploying into combat.

Resiliency is teachable, she said, advocating for the comprehensive fitness program that she helped develop.

Comprehensive fitness focuses on five components: physical, emotional, social, family and spiritual. She said each is important to prepare soldiers, or anyone else, to respond better to stressful situations, no matter how traumatic.

"There's things we can do to make everybody more psychologically robust," Cornum said. "I'm not going to stand before you and say I can take every Minnie Mouse and turn them into Rambo. But I can tell you that psychological health is a lot like physical health."

The program was modeled after the Army's physical training program and replaced the older programs where soldiers were give a long list of "don'ts" for coping with stress - such as avoiding drugs, excess alcohol and fighting - but weren't told what they could do to help themselves.

Those programs simply don't work, Cornum said.

"We did nothing for them. We didn't assess them, we didn't train them," she said.

Instead, Cornum said, people should be taught effective problem-solving, how to be flexible and that challenges are temporary, not permanent.

"These are things that should not be relegated to doctors," she said. "These are things that parents and teachers should be talking about.

"The time to learn something is before you need it, not after," Cornum said.

Cornum now is director of health strategies for TechWerks, a healthcare information technology company. Her many awards include the League of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

The Ruth Pauley Lecture Series is sponsored by Sandhills Community College, the Moore County League of Women Voters, the Sandhills branch of the American Association of University Women and Moore County Schools. Past speakers have included Sandra Day O'Connor, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Jack Nicklaus.

A new website for the series, ruthpauley.org, launched Wednesday.

Staff writer Drew Brooks can be reached at brooksd@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.

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